Imo guber race and Ohakim’s volte face

The recent attempt by the former Governor of Imo State and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2011 elections, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, to be joined as a party in the suit brought by Senator Ifeanyi Araraume of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) challenging the supplementary elections of May 6th 2011 that brought in Owelle Rochas Okorocha as the state governor could be likened to the biblical old wine in a new wine bottle.

It would be recalled that immediately after the elections of May 6th and the declaration of Okorocha of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as the valid winner of the rescheduled governorship elections in the state, Ohakim was the first to accept the results of the elections, congratulated Okorocha and pledged not to challenge the election results at the tribunal.

However, like a leopard that never changes its spots, Ohakim ate his words and went behind to use his party, the PDP, to challenge the elections from the Governorship Elections Petitions Tribunal to the Supreme Court where he lost.

Specifically, the Supreme Court on March 2, 2012, in its judgment affirmed the election of Okorocha as the Governor of Imo State and upheld the judgment of the Imo State Governorship Elections Tribunal that had held that the supplementary elections of May 6th, 2011 as conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was valid.

Both the Imo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal had upheld Okorocha’s declaration as the winner of the election.

However, the PDP was not satisfied with these two concurrent judgments of the two lower courts and had since appealed to the Supreme Court.

The PDP is challenging the judgment of the Appeal Court which, like the elections petition tribunal, dismissed the party’s petition challenging the election of Okorocha as lacking in merit.

PDP argued that Okorocha ought not to have been declared winner of the governorship election based on two major reasons: One, the party argues that it won the April 26, 2011 election and that its candidate, Ikedi Ohakim, ought to have been declared winner. PDP is specifically claiming that at the end of balloting on April 26, 2011, it polled a total 310,188 votes as against 305,266 polled by Okorocha’s party.

APGA, however, strongly disputed this claim. PDP further disagreed with INEC that the election of April 26 2011 was inconclusive.

Apart from arguing that the supplementary election was illegal, the PDP argued that it was held outside the 30 days stipulated by the Constitution for the successor of an incumbent governor to be elected. Consequently, it had urged the court to declare that the May 6, 2011 supplementary election was null and void. Instead, it urged the tribunal to declare its candidate, Ohakim, winner on the basis of the April 26, 2011 election.

INEC had in declaring the April 26 2011 election “inconclusive,” hinged its position on the non-holding of election in four local government areas namely Ohaji Egbema, Oguta, Mbaitoli and Ngor Okpala. But PDP disputed this claim. It argued that elections took place in the local government areas and that results were given to parties’ agents.

The commission claimed that the supplementary election held on the 6th of May, 2011 in Imo State was warranted by reasons of cogent and verifiable reasons which include violence and threat of imminent violence which disrupted the election, thus warranting the cancellation and postponement of the elections in the five local government areas. But PDP disagreed. Ohakim’s counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), while arguing his client’s case at the Supreme Court, said: “No cogent and verifiable reason, whatsoever, was given by INEC for the postponement of the election of 26th April, 2011 to 6th May, 2011.”

According to him, INEC acted arbitrarily, whimsically and without any respect for the law. He admitted that under the present electoral regime, INEC had the powers to postpone elections but that it did not have the powers to cancel elections.

He noted that INEC announced the postponement of the election on the next day after the elections had already taken place. He said, “The purported cancellation and or postponement was done on 27th April, 2011, a day after the elections were held. The question is, can an election scheduled to be held on 26th April, 2011 be postponed on 27th April, 2011?”

Although, the case of Agbaso Vs Ohakim decided by the Supreme Court is a binding judicial precedent that cancellation or objection to declaration of an inconclusive election was cognisable as election petition, but the case was not an authority that an election held outside 60 days to the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent was constitutional.

Apart from the fact that the apex court hardly disturbs the concurrent findings of the two lower courts, it is no longer in doubt that INEC has the power to declare an election inconclusive base on material facts available to it.